


Home Isn't Always A Place

by heartsdesire456



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Clint Feels, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Movie(s), Temporary Character Death, lack of education, partial illiteracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsdesire456/pseuds/heartsdesire456
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a super spy was hard.</p><p>Clint knew it was <i>hard</i> for everybody, but it was especially difficult for him. Because of his irregular recruitment and specialized skills, Clint was able to coast through the basics of SHIELD without too much trouble. He could shoot and fight and that was what they wanted him to do. He was positioned in a perch high above the target, given orders on who to shoot, and he shot them. It was that simple. No more, no less. Occasionally he had problems following orders- especially if they were written- and it landed him with insubordination marks against his name, but in the end things worked out. He may piss off a few handlers here and there, but overall he managed. They believed it was just his attitude. He felt ‘bad attitude’ was preferable of an opinion than them knowing the truth.</p><p>And the truth was that Clint was barely literate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Isn't Always A Place

**Author's Note:**

> In which I basically combine all the best Clint!Feels into one TINY little fic and make your souls hurt! I've been working on a science boyfriends fic the past few days and then last night I randomly got this idea and BOOM! Wrote this last night/today.

Being a super spy was hard.

Clint knew it was _hard_ for everybody, but it was especially difficult for him. Because of his irregular recruitment and specialized skills, Clint was able to coast through the basics of SHIELD without too much trouble. He could shoot and fight and that was what they wanted him to do. He was positioned in a perch high above the target, given orders on who to shoot, and he shot them. It was that simple. No more, no less. Occasionally he had problems following orders- especially if they were written- and it landed him with insubordination marks against his name, but in the end things worked out. He may piss off a few handlers here and there, but overall he managed. They believed it was just his attitude. He felt ‘bad attitude’ was preferable of an opinion than them knowing the truth.

And the truth was that Clint was barely literate. 

Clint had grown up in a bad home. His parents were both drunks and druggies, they fought and occasionally he and his brother got caught in the crossfire, and they were notoriously bad providers for he and his brother. It made sense to him that it was hard to focus at school when your clothes were ragged and your belly was empty. Clint was only six when his parents were killed and he and his brother were went to an orphanage. At the boys home, he and Barney were in and out so often they rarely went to the same school more than a few weeks at a time as they went from foster homes to the orphanage and back all over again. When Clint was eight, he and Barney ran off during the night and found themselves stowaways with a traveling circus that went through down.

Clint never went to school again after he joined the circus at eight years old. 

In the circus, there was no need for reading anything beyond names on the playbills and banners over the tents. He never had to write anything besides his own name and occasionally someone else’s. Nobody bothered teaching him history or literature or science or anything else really when all he needed to know was where the bull’s-eye was and how to hit it. He could count money, he could throw knives, and he knew enough about people to know not to trust anybody else with the knowledge that he sometimes couldn’t read the road signs they drove past in the night.

This knowledge of people carried him along until SHIELD picked him up and absorbed him into their ranks. As a specialist with a special set of skills, there was no reason to take a written entrance exam as long as he could shoot straight and see well. The first time he began to realize someone didn’t buy the ‘insubordination’ story was when he was reassigned to a new handler.

Senior Agent Phil Coulson was a non-nonsense, ‘take-no-bullshit’ kind of man. He looked so innocent and unassuming, but even before Clint was assigned Coulson as his handler, the stories were historic. Phil Coulson killed a man with his tie pin. Phil Coulson took down the Russian mafia single-handedly. Phil Coulson secretly had the ability to run a full week without needing sleep. All the stories Clint had heard prepared him for a hard-ass who would shuffle him along just like all the rest. He was prepared for the same old thing, only ramped up. What he got was so much different. And so much more than he had ever prepared for.

For nearly two years, Coulson didn’t jump down his throat for screw ups. Coulson gave him chances to explain himself. He never did much to explain his issues but Coulson seemed to be willing to give him minor disciplinary measures (such as not being allowed leave time that weekend) rather than shoving him off. Coulson _never_ gave up, no matter how difficult Clint made things for him. It earned him respect from Clint. Clint had never felt like anyone else had given him the kind of chances Coulson did in his whole life and he respected him for it.

That respect turned to admiration when Clint’s biggest breach of the SHIELD rules brought them a notorious assassin instead of an eliminated threat the day he broke mission and brought back Natasha Romanov instead of killing her. Coulson hadn’t been happy at all but he gave Clint the benefit of the doubt – again – and even took the blame and promised to be her handler as well just to take the brunt of the discipline from Clint. Clint began to trust Coulson after that and he never forgot what kind of favor Coulson had done him.

Natasha found out before anyone else. Clint never told her and she never asked, but he noticed that on missions, she would explain things in simplified terms when talking about them. She would basically take the instructions Clint had trouble following sometimes and explained them in a way he could understand. People began to call Coulson the handler who tamed the two most volatile agents of SHIELD, when really Natasha was simply more perceptive than anyone Clint had worked with and was able to make it easier for him to follow the orders he was given. Coulson had taken the initiative to vouch for Natasha – and for Clint when he brought her in – so Clint believed he still deserved the credit. Everyone congratulated Coulson on training the very best team of agents SHIELD had ever had.

Coulson, however, went above and beyond what Clint expected of a handler when he _noticed_ and brought up exactly what Clint had hidden and, instead of reprimanding him, he helped him in a way nobody ever had in his whole life.

_Clint came into Coulson’s office and flopped on the couch the way he usually did recently. He and Coulson had become almost friends in their time together and Clint didn’t feel as comfortable anywhere else as he did on Coulson’s office couch. “What’s up, boss man?” he asked, looking over at the desk behind which Coulson sat._

_Coulson put his papers aside and looked at Clint, eyes searching. “Clint, I’d like to talk about something.”_

_Clint froze and sat up. “Uh-oh, you called me ‘Clint’… you’re not dying are you?” he asked and Coulson chuckled._

_“No, it’s just… okay, I’m going to be Phil right now.” He gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Sit?”_

_Clint got up and walked over, falling into the chair. “Sir?”_

_“Phil,” Coulson- Phil reiterated. “Clint, I need to ask you something.” Clint nodded. Phil picked up a folder and slid it across the desk. Clint frowned but opened it, pulling it to him. He looked down and he had to fight his eyes bugging out. He recognized most of the words, but several of them made no sense and none of the sentences made sense with the words in those orders. “Clint, can you read that to me?”_

_Clint froze. His entire body locked up. He refused to look up but his hands began to shake while holding the folder. “Phil, what the hell-“_

_“Please?” Phil asked and Clint swallowed, looking at the first line. “Just humor me.” Clint sighed and closed his eyes, opening them to reveal such deep shame in those blue pools that Phil’s face fell. “I thought so.”_

_“Phil, I’m sorry,” Clint started but Phil took the folder back, shutting him up._

_“Don’t you apologize.” Phil clasped his hands and looked at Clint. “You have no reason to be ashamed, I’m just confused-“_

_“I have every right to be ashamed though,” Clint argued, blinking hard as tears of anger and humiliation filled his eyes. “Do you know how fucking embarrassing it is to get in trouble for insubordination because you can’t_ understand _the instructions you were given? That’s why I went through so many handlers. You think I’m really that much of an asshole? No! I’m just fucking_ stupid _-“_

 _“You aren’t stupid, Clint,” Phil said gently. “You are_ not _stupid. You’re a bright and clearly intelligent man, okay? Whatever your problems, we can work on this. You should’ve never hidden being dyslexic from SHIELD but it’s easy to accommodate-“_

_Clint shook his head, leaning his elbows on the desk. “I’m not dyslexic.” He swallowed hard. “I just- I can’t read well. I can. I can read if I have time. But I don’t understand some things. And there are a lot of things I just don’t know.”_

_Phil leaned back. “Okay, help me understand the problem. I kind of had assumed you suffer from dyslexia and Natasha has been reading things for you. You seem perfectly capable of logic and tactics so you aren’t mentally handicapped in any way I know of.”_

_Clint bit his lip and looked up. “Promise this doesn’t leave this room?” he asked and Phil nodded._

_“You know me by now, Clint. Whatever it is, you’re my priority, not spreading gossip,” he said with a soft, gentle, coaxing lilt to his voice._

_Clint sat back and scratched at his shirt hair. “I- I just never learned.” He looked up and met Phil’s eyes. “It was hard to focus when you’re hungry, your clothes are dirty, and you’re afraid of going home as a child. And after my parents died, my brother and I were in and out of group homes and changed schools every few weeks until eventually we just ran away and there wasn’t any school or education of any sort after that.”_

_Phil frowned. “You didn’t get a GED when you joined SHIELD?”_

_Clint closed his eyes. “I dropped out in the third grade.”_

_Phil just stared. “You-“_

_“Yep.” Clint nodded. “I was eight.”_

_Phil stared and then shook his head. “So you mean to say… never?”_

_Clint smiled sadly. “I could read the banners at the circus, I could write my name, I could count, and do basic math, and I learned really fast how to throw and shoot.”_

_Nothing Clint imagined as Coulson’s reaction had ever allowed for Phil to let out a breathless, “Oh Clint,” and gaze at Clint like he wanted nothing more than to_ hug him _while simultaneously fighting the urge to punch someone._

After that, Phil – for the first names stuck after that matter entrusted between them – began to help Clint learn things. Phil had been right to recognize that Clint wasn’t unintelligent, he had the capacity to learn and retain information relatively quickly. Whenever they were on downtime or just waiting for a mark, Phil helped Clint learn the spelling and meaning of new words, helped him read signs and whatever paperback Phil kept on his person, and he helped fill him in on some things that seemed so inconsequential to the average person that Clint had just never learned. For example, Clint understood the cardinal directions and how to locate a location using its longitude and latitude, but he didn’t know the science behind a compass or how it worked. Phil helped teach him basic understandings – like the science behind the water cycle and the math behind his shooting – in ways that didn’t change Clint’s practical application of things he had learned, but helped him understand why things were the way they were. There were so many things taken for granted as ‘common sense’ that Clint had just learned through repetition, not through being taught and understanding them.

Natasha didn’t know about their lessons and studying together, but she knew Clint was getting better at reading and understanding certain things. She figured it had to do with Coulson but she was happy to accept that their handler was helping her partner, and she appreciated anybody helping the one person who was closest to a friend to her. Clint began to improve in the field within a month of his lessons with Coulson and Coulson couldn’t be happier to see Clint showing even more potential than the nearly-flawless agent had already shown. Clint couldn’t begin to understand how the ‘legendary’ Agent Coulson became ‘Phil’ his friend through the process, but he was almost willing to admit that Phil was more than just a best friend. Clint was fiercely loyal to the one person who had ever shown him true compassion and a desire to voluntarily spend time with Clint. The time he and Phil spent reading or watching documentaries to help Clint understand why global issues were the way they were was some of the best hours of Clint’s week – if not his life – and he felt so much trust and comfort and _joy_ when he was with Phil. Phil was changing his life for the better in a way nobody else ever had and he had never cared about any other human – not even Natasha – the way he felt about Phil.

And then Loki came.

And then Clint was taken out and Loki was put in his place.

And then he was suddenly an Avenger, one of earth’s mightiest superheroes, and the fate of the world was partially in his hands.

And then… Phil was gone.

~

After everything that happened during the Battle of Manhattan, SHIELD released Clint and Natasha to join the rest of the Avengers rather than keeping them as SHIELD operatives. Without their handler, they were empty shells of the operatives they once were, absolutely thrown off kilter, and they were much more useful being the human element for their team. 

It had taken a few months for Stark to convince them to all move into the tower – Doctor Banner left and returned seven times in four months before he finally set up shop and moved in – and even Thor came around and stayed for a few weeks every once in a while. It had taken getting used to, Clint had been forced to learn and explore a whole new building, not to mention he had to learn to read a few new words on his own since Stark labeled things with excessively large words around the tower. 

For all his time devoted to learning things with Phil, as well as four months of studying in secret on his own, Clint still had trouble. It wasn’t easy to try and teach himself things Phil had laid the groundwork on without thinking of how much he fucking missed Phil. Every time he took out the battered paperback he and Phil had been reading through before Phil’s death, he ended up fighting tears. He _refused_ to cry. He was an assassin. He had murdered people in cold blood before SHIELD recruited him. He was a grown man who lived a tough life and he was not going to let the final dam break be all linked to a single person.

(But late at night, when it was too dark for anyone to see or hear, even Clint couldn’t deny that every once in a while he would give in to a few tears wept for the loss of not just how things were, not just the man he had trusted with his life, but for the so-much-more-than-friendship he would never get to experience because the only person he had ever had _true_ feelings for was dead.)

~

Sometimes, things went wrong. Sometimes, it was his fault. Sometimes, the things that went wrong were bad and Clint suffered the blame.

But sometimes, things that went wrong and were definitely Clint’s fault were so catastrophically bad that it not only brought danger to other members of the team, but it also brought the wrath of angry superheroes down on his shoulders alone.

Clint was crawling through the airshaft, making his way towards the checkpoint on the schematic above which the air vent opened into an access panel where he could disconnect the wires and disable the targeting system so that Tony could get in, disable the ICBMs aimed for North Korea, poised to start World War Three, and stop the mole men – yes, _mole men_ \- from using the distraction of intercontinental nuclear war to tunnel into the subbasements of every secure building in the continental US.

“Hawkeye, hurry up, you have to disconnect those wires!” Steve urged over the radio.

“I’m going, I’m going. You try crawling your big ass through an airshaft built to transport – oh yeah – AIR!” he hissed, clearly frustrated.

Natasha clicked on. “You can do this, just go faster. Nobody can do anything until you get the targeting system down.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” he whispered, making it around the corner. “Okay, okay, I see the power lines,” he said, looking at the cables above his head. “Radio silence from here on out.”

“Alright, silence in ten seconds, but remember you have two minutes to get down the targeting-“

“Silent,” Clint said, clicking off the radio. He sighed and shimmied around the corner, sliding down a slight incline before digging in, so to speak, and crawling as fast and silently as possible towards the fuse box straight ahead. When he got to the box, he reached into his vest to pull out the instructions and a knife to pry the box open. He set to work, working the blade into the edges just enough to pop the cover off without making any noise, then set it aside. He put away the knife and unfurled the instructions, clicking on his wrist light to read them. “Open fuse box, find fuse marked…” He frowned at the word. He looked at the fuses and saw none of them had any writing. “Shit.” He read further and found more instructions. “If not marked find fuse per- perpen-“ Clint groaned and blinked a few times before focusing again. “Per-pen-dic-ular. Perpendicular to-“ He frowned. “Quad-ri-lat-eral- find double-fuse perpendicular to quadrilateral circuit.” 

Clint looked at the fuse array and was absolutely lost. There were several fuses, some double, some single, as well as a bunch of little circuit boards of all shapes and sizes. It would help if Clint knew what ‘quadrilateral’ meant. Or ‘perpendicular’. “Okay think, think, think.” He closed his eyes. “Quad means four so… square?” He looked at the array and found a rectangular circuit- close enough, it had four sides. He then set to looking around it. “Perpendicular. Perpendicular. Shit, what does that mean?!” He cursed and took a breath, trying to decide between the double fuse running alongside the rectangular circuit and the double fuse that ran the opposite direction at the rectangle’s end. “Fuck, okay-“ He gave one last guess and reached out with his pliers, intending to cut off the wire leading to one of the fuses at random.

However, before his pliers could touch the wire, the entire building shook with the report of a two missile launches. “FUCK!” He scrambled and snipped both fuses from the wires but the missiles had already fired. He scrambled to click on his radio and wiggled around. “What happened?!” he cried over the comms, but all he could hear was the frantic sounds of everybody talking at once as he scrambled as fast as he could back to the outer vent, fully aware that whatever happened, he had really fucked up.

~

Clint and Natasha were the last two back from the mission and they came into the common area to find an agitated Tony Stark being physically held in place by Bruce as he tried to finish cleaning and wrapping a series of nasty gashes along Tony’s left arm. Steve looked haggard from his spot sitting on the couch, looking down at the news footage on his holo-tablet. “Stark, you alright?” Natasha called out as they walked over.

Tony wheeled around, nearly getting to his feet before Bruce shoved him down onto the chair again. “You! Barton! What the FUCK was that?!” he demanded.

Clint hesitated a few yards away. “I- what?”

Bruce looked up, glowering at him for honestly the first time ever. “Look, I know humans make mistakes, we all do, but you really picked a terrible time to have a slow day, Clint. Tony’s lucky he’s alive, and he risked his life to avert intercontinental nuclear war,” he stressed.

Clint paled. “I- it was just- the instructions were kinda hard-“

“Oh fuck that,” Tony snapped, wincing when Bruce poured more alcohol along his wounded arm. “You had plenty of time and all you had to do was cut a damn wire to turn off their targeting system! How hard is it to cut a wire?! You had two minutes when you went silent-“

Clint snapped, “Your instructions could’ve been easier to follow, Stark!”

Bruce looked up. “Clint, I wrote those instructions down. They were perfectly straight forward! It said to cut the wire on the fuse that was perpendicular to the quadrilateral-“

Natasha froze just as Clint clenched his jaw. “You could’ve just said cut the wire to the fuse that crossed the end of the rectangle,” he mumbled, only to wince when Tony let out a bark of angry laughter.

“What the FUCK do you think he wrote?! What is so hard about his written instructions?! Was it the handwriting? I swear I’ve got janitors with G.E.D.s that could’ve done a better job than you-“

“WELL MAYBE THAT’S BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE ONE!” Clint cried out angrily, turning to Tony and Bruce. “Fuck, you give me the most important part of the whole mission and you expect we’re all fucking brilliant like the two of you but NEWS FLASH! Some of us are just poor, stupid, trailer trash hicks who happened to fuck up royally in life and get sucked into this mess! You put your entire life in the hands of the one who only in the last year reached a fourth grade reading level and shit is going to go wrong, don’t you think?!” He finished with his shoulders heaving and tears in his eyes, threatening to spill over. “I work so fucking hard to keep people from knowing what a worthless fuck up I really am and every time people give me more and more important jobs and more and more responsibility and I’m _sick_ of being responsible for everything going _wrong_.” Clint swallowed hard and said nothing else before turning on his heel and marching out – head held high, damn it, because he had nothing left to be ashamed of after that – so that he could go somewhere that nobody could judge him for once.

~

To say things were tense in the tower would be an understatement. For two weeks after their near-catastrophic-failure, Clint didn’t show his face. He spent more time hiding out in the air ducts and reading his favorite, tattered paperback, the last one he had finished with Phil, than he did out where everybody could see him. He liked to pretend that the book was what made his throat tight and his eyes burn. 

The team was not doing well at all. Since Clint’s big confession, Bruce had all but disappeared into his lab, absolutely consumed with guilt at putting so much pressure on Clint and blaming him when things went wrong. Bruce was like that. He always blamed himself if there was any way possible.

Natasha and Steve were both pissed at Tony for still blaming Clint, claiming he should’ve just told them to start with. Natasha was fiercely protective of Clint and Steve was just angry at Tony for not being more compassionate. Whenever Tony and Steve happened to be around, they inevitably ended up in a shouting match that would’ve come to blows if Natasha wasn’t skulking around somewhere having left many written warnings that she would personally disembowel the next person who upset Clint, though she clearly had no idea how to help Clint, so she too avoided him.

Clint had never felt more alone in his life.

One night, Clint came out of his hiding place to get something to eat and found Bruce having a cup of tea. He held his head high and ignored Bruce as he headed towards the cabinet and took out some cereal and a bowl. “Hi,” Bruce said, breaking Clint’s intended silence.

Clint sighed, dropping his head. “Hi, Bruce.”

Bruce bit his lip, hands worrying the handle of his cup. “So look, I have tried to find you to apologize but you haven’t been around so… can I just tell you now that I’m so sorry we put so much pressure on you before? If we had known you had a learning disability, we would’ve never made things so difficult.”

Clint took his bowl over to the table and sat. “I’ve been around, I just… hid,” he admitted. He looked up and saw the deep-seated regret and shame in Bruce’s eyes and felt a little bad for ignoring him. “Look, I’m not learning disabled. I’m perfectly capable of learning anything. I’ve actually got decently quick logic and reasoning skills.” He smiled sadly down at his hands. “Phi- Coulson thought I was dyslexic when he brought it up last year.”

Bruce tilted his head. “If you aren’t dyslexic or something, what’s the problem? And what took Agent Coulson so long to bring it up?”

Clint bit his lip. “I never went to school, really,” he admitted. “You’re actually one of the only ones that could probably understand my childhood with any detail. My parents were always drunk or high, they were abusive to each other and sometimes to us, and then they died when I was six.” Bruce’s breath hitched. “My brother and I went into an orphanage and then through various foster homes and back so often we were never in the same school more than a few weeks. Then when I was eight, my brother took me and ran away.” He shrugged. “I could write my own name and read the signs and learned to throw knives and shoot trick shots without needing to learn anything so basically, my shoddy education from five to eight was all I had.”

Bruce shook his head in disbelief. “Nobody worked it out?”

Clint shook his head. “I was a different sort of recruit for SHIELD. I was a mercenary that they brought in for my abilities as an assassin. I didn’t go through a written entrance exam, I didn’t have any written training, and all I had to do was read and understand well enough to follow orders. When I fucked up, they wrote it off as insubordination. I was shuffled around a lot before Phil got me. He clearly realized something was wrong but he either didn’t imagine it was under education or didn’t want to look into it when I did my job. Then when Natasha joined me, she noticed and would simplify things for me. She’d read the mission statements and instead of repeat it to me word for word, she would make things easier to understand. Phil noticed how much better I got with Natasha and after a while, he asked me to read something and when I couldn’t, he thought I was dyslexic.”

Bruce’s skin paled slightly. “Phil?”

Clint swallowed hard, looking away. “Yeah, he was Phil to me,” he whispered. He sighed. “Instead of report me or something, he- Phil started helping me. He would bring books with him and during travel or while waiting for a mark, he would help me get better at reading things. And he would explain things that I kind of accepted as fact and didn’t ask ‘how’ so that I understood things better. When we were off mission and I wasn’t training, I was almost always in his office just reading while he did paperwork so that I could ask him if I needed something explained. Phil-“ Clint stopped, alarmed to feel his eyes beginning to sting. “Phil didn’t treat me any differently. He just- he was the first person in my entire life to bother trying to help me. He didn’t treat me like the mid-west trailer trash most people would have, he just helped me get better. Phil was-“ Clint swallowed hard. “He was just-“

“A decent human being?” Bruce asked and Clint looked up, smiling sadly at the pained look in Bruce’s eyes as he watched Clint.

“He was my friend,” Clint said with a laugh. “Phil Coulson was the only person I’ve ever trusted. He was my handler, and my friend, and pretty much the only person who ever cared about me. I mean, Natasha is my friend, I’m sure she cares about me, but she’s still a spy. She doesn’t have the compassion a normal person does. Phil was the closest thing I had to a home and since he- Since Loki nothing has been okay,” Clint whispered, looking up with glistening eyes. “And without Phil around, nobody accommodates for me anymore. Natasha helps but she doesn’t really get it. I’ve gone from a spy to a fucking _super hero_ and every responsibility is bigger and every decision has more consequences and I still don’t _understand_ so much that should be average knowledge because the most important person in my entire life is _gone_ and there’s nobody to even talk to about everything because he’s not here and I can’t trust anybody like I did him because he was everything to me and I can’t put my faith in someone else because they’ll die too,” he finished weakly, trembling from the effort of holding in his emotions.

“You’re right,” Bruce said softly and Clint looked up to see a haunted look in Bruce’s eyes. “Pretty sure nobody would understand that more than me.” He looked into Clint’s eyes. “I’m so sorry. I know you don’t want sympathy but just- I’m _so_ sorry,” he stressed.

Clint smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I figured you could get it.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry I nearly killed the whole world by hiding my problem but you have to know how embarrassing it is to live in a building full of superheroes and _geniuses_ and admit you don’t know what the hell a quadrilateral is or what perpendicular means.” He shook his head. “I fucking know now though. First thing I did was get a dictionary and look that shit up,” he grumbled and Bruce laughed.

“I’m sorry I wrote in big words. I wrote it all down the way I think. I didn’t even allow for the possibility-“

“Why would you?” Clint said with a shrug. “I don’t blame you guys, I know there was no reason for you to have any suspicions. It was all me.” He sat back and looked down. “Shit just happens sometimes.”

Bruce laughed weakly. “Don’t I know it.”

~

After Bruce apologized, Bruce and Clint were able to work together again, but that didn’t do much for the team as a whole. Tony was still unrelenting in his insistence that Clint should’ve just told them, which Clint could agree with so he held no anger still, but it didn’t stop Natasha and Steve from being absolutely pissed at Tony.

Tony hadn’t apologized for anything, but Clint had forgiven him for his attitude. They didn’t exactly hang out and get chummy, but Clint didn’t ignore him. He was embarrassed still, so he didn’t want to risk Tony making cracks, but if they needed to talk about something he wouldn’t shy away. Bruce seemed to still be uneasy around their confrontations – especially when Tony and Steve got into big arguments – so he and Clint hung back. 

Things weren’t too bad until the day Steve and Tony got into a fist-fight (worse still, on mission it was Captain America and Iron Man fist-fighting) while they were trying to stop an alien spaceship from landing on the Lower Eastside. Clint, Natasha, and Hulk were able to get to the ship and breech the hull, Hulk distracting the aliens on board while Natasha and Clint got in so that Clint could cover Natasha while she hacked their systems and convinced them they had to abandon mission. However, the jet they had flown up was trashed by the alien attack on the deck and, since Tony and Cap were busy beating the hell out of one another, Hulk had to take Clint and Natasha in one hand each and leap do safety, shielding them from the impact of a three _thousand_ foot jump to land with his body.

When the three of them woke up – lucky to be alive on Natasha and Clint’s part – Natasha had a broken leg, Clint had four broken ribs, they both had serious concussions, and they were laying in a heap on top of naked Bruce in the middle of a gigantic crater. Bruce had managed to help Clint get a splint on Natasha’s leg and was still strong enough even with the usual post-Hulk bone-tiredness to help an injured Clint get Natasha up and out of the crater since Tony and Steve were still busy fighting and hadn’t even noticed the battle was _over_. 

Natasha and Clint had been taken to SHIELD medical at headquarters and then brought back to the tower. Natasha’s break was only a partial fracture so she wasn’t required to stay overnight with her leg in traction, they had casted it and give her crutches, pain killers, and instructions to stay off her leg for a full four weeks before they started her on a walking cast. When they got back to the tower, Clint wasn’t at all surprised to see Bruce laying into Steve and Tony. He was clean and looked slightly rested, but it had only been eight hours so he wasn’t surprised he was cranky.

“And because of you two assholes Clint and Natasha nearly _died_!” he finished just as Clint and Natasha walked in. He looked up and gestured to the way Natasha was walking on crutches with Clint holding onto her to keep her from falling since she was still on pain medication. “SEE!” Bruce threw his hands up. “You two arrogant bastards can’t get off your high horses and realize nobody cares about either of you being right!”

“He’s right, Stark,” Natasha said as she hobbled over and Clint helped lower her onto the couch. “Your stupidity has me of mission for a month. Do you _know_ what kind of ass kicking you’re gonna get when I’m better?” she asked. “You should’ve been on this. You’re the hacker and I was stuck doing your job because of your pissing contest with Steve.”

Clint stood tall, hand over his side. “If it wasn’t for Hulk following our jet – you owe Fury a new jet by the way – and distracting them while we got shit done without you two, he wouldn’t have been there and we would’ve _died_ today. Natasha and I would be dead, Stark. You two are an important part of this team and you were busy fighting each other instead of the aliens like the massive assholes you are.” Steve at least looked slightly ashamed, but Tony scoffed.

“If Stars and Stripes wasn’t such a candy ass-“ Tony was cut off when Bruce whirled on him.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, TONY!” he snapped, shocking them all. Bruce and Tony had been a dynamic duo from the start, disappearing for days at a time to work together. They were the best of friends. To see mild-mannered Bruce Banner give in and _shout_ at Tony was a shock. “You’re being an asshole and I’m not going to sit here and put up with your bullshit! I’m serious, both of you, grow the hell up and realize not everything is about you!”

“I couldn’t have put it better, Dr. Banner.”

Everybody froze when a sixth voice joined their argument. Clint closed his eyes, refusing to look back at the elevators. “No,” he whispered.

Tony broke the silence. “Agent?!” he asked in shock.

“Mr. Stark,” the unmistakable voice replied, coming closer. “I would like to know why you and Rogers seem so intent on killing your teammates.”

Natasha’s eyes were wide as she reached out and tugged at Clint’s pants, still looking behind him. “Clint.”

Clint shook his head, closing his eyes. “Impossible.”

“ _Clint_ ,” she stressed, tugging harder. Clint took a deep breath, and he turned around. Clint’s breath caught when he saw Phil standing there a few feet behind Bruce. He looked like _hell_. He was pale, thinner than Clint could imagine, and he had a can to help him stand. 

But he was _Phil_. “S-Sir?” Clint asked weakly. His heart was pounding and he couldn’t look away.

Phil managed a small smile, though his eyes were searching Clint over the same way Clint had seen after missions for years. “Are you alright, Barton?” he asked.

Clint nodded blankly, hand still pressed over his side. “Considering… you?” he asked weakly.

“Is nobody going to bring up the fact Agent is supposed to be dead and he’s standing here?! Talk about backstabbing- oh wait!” Tony spoke up and Clint turned, pointing a hand at him.

“You shut up, Stark,” Clint ordered. “Have some fucking _tact_ you son of a bitch-“

“Clint, stop.” Clint stopped immediately and turned back to Phil. Phil took a step forward, but Clint could see how hard walking was on him so he closed the distance quickly, absolutely ignoring the pain he was in himself. “Clint, it’s alright,” he said softly when Clint was close enough.

Clint just stared, breath coming in short gasps. “I don’t- you were- it’s not p-“

“Possible that I’d come back to look after my specialist?” he asked, looking into Clint’s eyes. 

Clint swallowed hard. “Alive. You were- you were _gone_ ,” he finished in a pained whisper. 

Phil shook his head. “I survived, miraculously. It took a solid month before I stopped giving out on them.” He nodded at Stark. “They had to steal some of his inventions to help keep me alive long enough to fix me.”

Clint just stared. “So what,” Stark started behind him. “You were gonna stay dead or some shit?! Why are you back now then?”

Phil didn’t look away from Clint when he spoke. “I was coming back when I was able to handle you giant children again. I was supposed to take another three months to recover. I checked myself out without Fury’s permission this afternoon when I found out the team I’d given my life for was falling apart and it nearly ended in the death of my specialist.” He lowered his voice. “Clint, I was terrified. I saw the footage. You fell from so far with nothing but a Hulk to stop your fall. I knew things hadn’t been good for you lately, and I wanted to come then, but I just couldn’t. I can barely walk now, but-“

“ _Phil_ ,” Clint whispered, blinking hard. He reached out tentatively and laid a hand on Phil’s right shoulder, gasping when his hand found warm, solid human not an imaginary image. “Jesus, Phil, you’re here.”

Phil nodded. “I came home.” Clint laughed wetly and Phil reached out, putting his free hand on Clint’s side. “Come here,” he whispered and Clint gently curled his arms around Phil’s middle, laying his head on Phil’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry for leaving you alone,” Phil whispered against his hair.

Clint just choked on a laugh, hiding his face in Phil’s neck. “You’re so forgiven, Phil,” he mumbled, closing his eyes as he let Phil hold him. “Welcome home,” he whispered, lips pressed against Phil’s skin. Phil just turned and kissed his hair as he continued to hold him in silence. 

There would be time for talking later.


End file.
